I look at the titles of the books. Wait, is the lamp on?

Yes, the lamp is on. That's how you could see the books.

The books have blank covers.

I open the top one

All of the pages in the book are blank.

Huh that's weird I say to myself. I put it aside and open up the next.

Also blank!

I cast it aside, slightly annoyed and look at the next.

The door opens! (The third book was also blank.)

An androgynous person of indeterminate age pops their head out from the door.

"Next!" they say.

"Where am I, who are you, and why are all the books blank?"

The person sighs in a world-weary way.

"Do you want to come in here and talk about that, or do you want to stay in the waiting room?"

I follow through the door. Wait, there's only one door, a little odd for a waiting room.

Indeed!

Inside the adjoining room you see a desk, another lamp, and another potted plant. Your host sits down behind the desk and picks up a clipboard and a pen.

There is a chair on this side of the desk, where you could potentially sit down.

In addition to the door you just passed through there is another door on the opposite side of the room.

"Name?" they say, pen poised over the clipboard.

I sit down in the chair. He promised me some answers and I get the feeling running won't get me far. "Isaac Gunderson" I say.

"Hello, Isaac, and welcome. Favorite color?"

"blue, no green" I respond, hoping to inject a bit of levity.

"You realize those are really quite different. Is green your final answer?"

They would be looking at you over the top of their glasses, if they were wearing glasses.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware this was a very fraught question. It isn't where I'm from"

They just look at you steadily, pen at the ready.

Isaac thinks hard. This might have consequences beyond what he knows. The associations of each are different: the life giving or poisonous green, the blue that can either be the implacable remorseless sea or the expansive sky. Well, with nothing more to work with it might as well be green.

"Yes" he responds. "Green is my final answer".

"Good." They make a note on their clipboard.

"What else would you like to specify, before you walk through the door? Or are you a green purist?"

Isaac thinks. "Well I do also like blue. Is blue-green a possibility? And I'd like some answers"

"You've already chosen green as your final answer, so that part is done. However, you might add some blue, but you'll have to tell me what will be blue. You? Your love interest? Your nemesis?"

Love interest? Nemesis? This is sounding pretty high stakes. And maybe black would be a less formidable nemesis. "We're not talking about paint are we" he says.

The host looks at you implacably. If you were the self-conscious sort, you might decide it was a pitying look.

"No. It's not about paint."

Pen still hovering.

"what is it about? I think I'm going to need to know more before I make a big decision"

They sigh.

"What's the basic ontology of your native universe? Explaining this one from scratch takes more time than I have, but maybe I can just quickly bridge concepts for you."

Isaac thinks "well, we don't really know. Our best guess is it's a unitary operator from the gauge theory of SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) on a background governed by a mass-curvature relation but we know that's incomplete and there are 20 free parameters. Or is there some other thing you wanted to know about that might be less basic?"

They blink.

They blink again.

"Yeah, I'm not really going to be able to bridge in this case."

"So... do you want to pick or should I just randomize?"

"well we played this game where red was aggression, green growth, blue anti-tempo and complex magical effects, black all sorts of death effects, and white protection. Is this world something like that?"

The person sags with apparent relief.

"Yes! That's right! Looks like you're from a neighboring universe after all. That's not precisely how it works here but you do at least have the correct basic colors."

"So, I really do have to move you through here, I have a lot more to process today. Are you going to make any more picks? Self, love interest, nemesis? Or are you feeling red about it?"

"why don't you randomize?"

The host looks pleased by this. Progress!

"Do you want me to tell you or should it be a surprise?"

"Tell me. It might help me survive"

The host nods in approval.

"Here are your selections:"

World: green

Love interest: black

Nemesis: green

"I cannot, of course, dictate your own behavior to you; you'll have to select your own color as you go. Though... what are you planning on, I wonder? Just for my notes."

Isaac grins. "Get the princess, save the world I imagine. See you later" and walks out the other door.

As Isaac emerges through the door, the light outside is bright. It's a pastoral environment, with rolling green hills and golden sun angling through wispy clouds. It feels like late afternoon on a balmy autumn day, at least on some planets.

In the distance, there are some low buildings that might be farmhouses and barns.

Isaac walks up through the meadows towards the buildings cautiously. No telling what he's been dropped into. He looks around trying to figure out what's growing and how it's being grown.

It's a farm, but, like, a pretty organic one? And not organic in the sense of "didn't use pesticides," although that's also true. Organic, like, they don't need to rotate their crops because everything is just sort of growing together. There are flowers and squash and squash flowers, cornstalks, vines, weeping willows, and morning glories.

Near the farmhouse there's a small, banked fire in a fire pit, and there are four... people? ... sitting around the fire.

Isaac walks towards the fire pit, taking care not to trample anything. About 30 feet away he shouts, waving his empty hands. "Hello! Hi there!". If only he had some trinkets to give them, maybe a backpack to hold things he might take along. If not he'll have to solve that problem.

"Helloooooo," shouts back one of the people, waving back. "Welcome!"

This person in particular was previously sitting next to the fire with her legs curled under her, but as she stands up it becomes apparently that she is more than two meters tall. She has shimmering wings and shiny, glittering gemstones embedded along her brow ridges and cheekbones. The light from the fire reflects off her in scattered rainbows, even in the fading golden afternoon light.

The physics of it seem kind of odd, actually; people do not usually give off this much light.

Isaac tries hard not to stare. She is striking in appearance, and honestly rather pretty but odds are this is her family. "hi, I'm a traveler from far away and a stranger to this land. I would be grateful to sit by your fire and have a meal and learn more and do some work for you before I wander on. Your land is full of bounty and well tended".

The other people could be her family, it sort of depends on how you define family! The rest of them are not glowing sparkly winged, beings, however. They each seem to have something different going on. There's one with great curled horns, there's one who looks like a basic standard-issue human wearing monk's robes, and there's one who looks kind of dwarfish.

For now, though, the tall winged creature takes the lead.

"Of course! We have plenty, though we won't eat until later. Come and sit with us and tell us of your adventures. Where do you come from? What do you seek?"

Isaac sits by the fire. These creatures make him think magic might work here, but best to approach that delicately. "I come from a faraway land where our plants grow in long rows and are harvested by machine, our carriages move by engines within them, where metal birds swallow us and take us through the sky. And each of those is something I know in principal to do, though it takes the efforts of thousands, each making a single step to bring these wonders to life."

"But then I was asked to pick a color by a man in a room, and now I am here. I know nothing of your ways, have nought but the clothes on my back and this" he holds out his wristwatch, the second hand ticking away and some of the gears visible.

The horned one grunts. "Why do the metal birds do that, and how do you get them to stop?"

Upon closer examination, she seems to be female, if sex is even binary in her species.

"they are great machines, with skins of a light metal won from clay, engines that suck the air and blow it out the back, and guided by the hands of humans who pull on levers that move flaps that steer them. Not actual birds but rather machines that also soar in the air but through different means"